OK, So I got the thing painted this morning. I'm going to say for my first time actually spraying finish coats, it was a roaring success!!

Now, its not in perfect, stick it on the car and drive home condition. It will have to be cut and buffed before I call it done, but I am very pleased.

But I have been in the booth on 3 other cars with 3 separate painters who had been doing this a very long time, and my hood looks pretty much the same as what I saw them doing. All of those jobs turned out just fine after cut n buff.

It has the usual dust nibs and some orange peel, but nothing terrible. I did my best to make as clean a work space as I could possibly do. So there Is really nothing I would change other than I should have put the entire quart on it, b/c I was worried on the last coat that my siphon gun might start spitting and I didnt get to lay it down quite as heavy as I would have liked. But really not an issue as I will have to buff anyway.

I shot the paint "high solids" mix for the first two coats and then standard reduction for the third.

I sprayed at 50psi at the gun with the trigger pulled and both adjustments wide open, seems to work best on my $30 HF siphon gun. I think it has a 1.8 or 1.7 tip.

I ordered two HF "purple" $14 guns, but they are still a week and a half away, so I decided to go for it anyway. It was a gamble but it worked out fine.